If Tina Turner is "simply the best,” her late ex-husband was anything but.

Yet even Ike Turner — the musician and record producer known as much for his wife-beating and cocaine addiction as helping launch the legendary songstress into fame — has an important backstory, according to the actor who plays him on Broadway.

The marriage between Ike and Turner, which lasted on paper from 1962 to 1978, is depicted as brutal from the start in “Tina,” opening Thursday. Before they even wed, Ike hurls a cymbal at Turner in the show. And things only get worse from there.

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Watts, 37, says he was fully aware of how bad the abuse was before he signed on for the part, having seen the film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” which highlighted the troubled marriage, and read Turner’s autobiography, “I, Tina,” as well as Ike’s own autobiography.

While Watts condemns abuse of any kind, he acknowledges the difficult past endured by Ike, who died in 2007 at age 76 from a cocaine overdose.

“He grew up in the Confederate South in the ‘30s and ‘40s,” Watts says. “His father, when he was still a kid, was [killed] by a white mob. He had several wives, one of which was taken from him and put into an insane asylum by her parents.

“All of these things happened to him before he had met Tina,” Watts adds, “so it kind of created an individual at a time when therapy wasn’t an option at all. So when you have someone who has all of that pent up, holding on to all of that when you feel like you don’t have much control, you begin to exhibit power wherever you think you can.”

Being familiar with the tribulations of Ike’s earlier life helped him play the part.

Adrienne Warren in "Tina - The Tina Turner Musical." (Manuel Harlan)

“Understanding that kind of lightens the load a little bit, just because I understand him,” Watts says. “I don’t feel that I’m reaching outside of anything that I don’t get. Just because I know, if I hadn’t gone to therapy, sure, I could potentially be Ike Turner, with whatever I may have pent up.”

Watts — whose Broadway credits include “Hamilton” and “In the Heights” and who has appeared in shows like Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and HBO’s “The Deuce" — admits he wasn’t too familiar with the music featured in “Tina" when he was growing up.

But he does remember his mom playing the Ike and Tina Turner version of “Proud Mary” around the house. Ike had formed the duo that was active in the 1960s and ’70s, up until the time their marriage started falling apart.

Later on in the musical, after the couple’s split, the actress playing Turner belts out the hits of her solo career, including “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and “The Best.”

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Turner is played by Adrienne Warren, who reprises the title role she had in the version of the show in London’s West End. Warren and Watts have known each other for a decade, having appeared in “The Wiz” together at City Center in 2009.

“We’re going to deal with some things,” he adds. “We’re going to talk through some issues, and we’re going to watch a woman not only come into herself but realize she’s been this person her whole life.”